Someone like You
by Halik
Summary: "You haven't seen me in five years! I loved you! I loved you more than you could possibly know. But now you have a fine lady back in Europe and I've done things. How can you possibly call me a lady after the things that I have done?" AU end of Goliath.


She sat down on the bench, holding her small hand bag close to her side, tucking her legs uncomfortably under her skirt as though she wasn't accustomed to wearing such a thing. Her eyes were as overcast as the sky that stood like a ceiling above central park.

"I'm glad that you came. I was afraid that you wouldn't bother—"The man on the other side of the bench murmured, a smile flickering on his face for a second. It was a sad, old looking face even though it was only weathered by about twenty years.

"You thought I'd stand you up?" The young woman snapped, folding her arms quickly, as though to hide her heart from him.

He ignored the question and the gesture, his back stiffened a bit, and there was a long pause as he exhaled. He closed his eyes, shook his head, and leaned his head back so that he looked at the concrete colored sky. The short ends of his hair tickled the top of the young woman's head. He was taller than the last time they had met.

"You speak like a proper lady now, a lot has happened while I was gone, hasn't it?"

"It sure as hell has. Did you think that you can leave for five years and then just come prancing back one day and just pretend things are like the used to be? Five years! Five years I've been without you and then you have the bloody nerve to send me a letter out of damned nowhere and expect me to be happy about it!"

He was not used to being snapped at by the woman. His voice shook, slightly taken aback. "I thought you would—"The uneasiness brought out his accent, it made him seem both older and younger at the same time. It reminded the young woman of happier days, yet it made his voice sound like one of the members for the League of Nations that the news reels sometimes covered.

"What, wait for you?" She scoffed with a bit of cold laughter.

"Yes. I'm sorry if I was wrong."

"Dead wrong." She growled, her arms folding tighter around her torso. The bruises on her arm screamed in pain as the tight sleeves of her top rubbed. She wanted to cry out but she had handled worse than this. Or at least that's what she told herself each night.

"So who is this lucky gentleman?"

"You won't know him."

"An American? Is he a German?" The man asked insistently, his voice filled with a mixture of suspicion and worry. The young woman gripped her arms tighter. He had always been a bit slow. But it had been five years. Like he had said, things had changed, and it seemed as though he was a wee bit quicker than before.

"Go to hell." She murmured so that only he could hear the soft whimper in her voice.

She heard the man's hands wrap around the bottom edge of the bench, the wood screaming under his tight grip. Yet he didn't move. He didn't turn his head to get a good look at her. And thank God that he hadn't. She didn't know what she would have done if he had. Things had changed. Things that she wasn't particularly ready for him to know.

"Does he treat you right?"

There was another long pause, this time it was her turn to stare up at the industrial sky. It was so inorganic. She had the strange urge to destroy it. To pour some sort of eating acid or slam a hammer against it until it broke open and revealed a bright blue sky. How long had it been since she had seen the sky? She didn't know. She tried to regain her composure to respond. But her voice still shook. "Well enough."

The young man nodded, understanding the words behind the words.

"You know that I'll always be here." He leaned over the back of the bench, almost touching the gray colored sleeve that covered her arm. Almost. His fingers pulling back at the last moment.

"Yes. I know." She responded stiffly, her eyes fixed on the little bag that she had tucked in her lap. She tried not to look at the hand. It was larger than before. It was no longer the hand of a lost boy.

"And that I'd never do anything to you. I'd treat you like a proper lady."

"I don't deserve that." She shook her head, short hair flying in her face like a child, tears brimming around her eyes, her cheeks turning the color of powdered rust.

"Yes, you do."

"How the hell do you know what I bloody deserve?"

"Because—"

"You haven't seen me in five years! I loved you! I loved you more than you could possibly know. But now you have a fine lady back in Europe and I've done things. How can you possibly call me a lady after the things that I have done?" She yelled over him in hushed tones, a few tears escaping the confines of her eyes "I am no lady. I can't even be called a human being damn it!"

"Because I know that you deserve as much!" He yelled in turn over her. She could feel his muscles tense on the bench, ready to spring up and turn around and look her in the eye. And yet he didn't move. As though afraid of what he would see. "Because the entire time I was in Europe I couldn't stop thinking about you! Your smile, your whit, your strength. You were a soldier. You fought for those who could not fight. What happened to you? If you are even the smallest fraction of the woman that you used to be, then you are the most wonderful human being that I have ever met and I couldn't possibly imagine, couldn't even fathom anyone more wonderful. As long as she still lives, then that is enough for me."

"That soldier died in 1915, you bloody well know that." The young woman whimpered "she died and there's no bringing her back. She lives only in your memory now."

She rose from the bench, frozen for a moment in thought. Her chest rose and fell, her dull eyes closed so that she couldn't see his hand as it whipped a tear off of her pale face. It was warm, rougher than she remembered it being.

He leaned to whisper something in her ear, face buried in her mess of blonde hair. The words that began to unfold from his lips were unlike anything she'd heard before. Sweet and warm and kind.

Tears burst from her eyes and began to run. She couldn't handle this. She had given up on him so long ago. She had settled. And now here he was again, offering her a way out, a helping hand to pull her from this sea of hellish cogs and gears that she was drowning in. He was here to save her, to finally let her fly again. And yet she ran.

"I love you."

The words floated from behind her. A for a moment she was back with him, standing on top of the airship, his hands wrapped around a decree from the pope. The moment that he told her that he couldn't love her. And for the first time in her life, that moment didn't matter. Everything that had happened since that second was a void, a chasm of gray in comparison to the bright pink that flooded her cheeks, her eyes bright with a sudden jolt of life.

Her heart quickened, she could do this, she could leave her husband! She could become her own woman, if only with him. Society didn't matter. They would have each other in a sweat embrace of pure blindness. She threw her arms open, the bruises on her arms screaming but she couldn't feel them. Spreading her wings for the first time in a half a decade. All that she could feel was joy.

"Yes! I love you too! I love you, bloody dummkopf!"

She turned around, ready to join the man, to see his face for the first time in five years.

He was gone. His silhouette a bleak imprint where he once stood. She was very much alone in her own prison of gray.


End file.
